CORONA-CATION Day 35: Whaaaat?!? Corona-refugia

I can't believe that I have been "sheltering in place" for 35 days.  I believe I will be a better person when I emerge, but that will not be soon.  Personal choice.

So there is a theory on the biodiversity of the Amazon called Refugia Hypothesis.  Put simply it says that the incredible biodiversity that we see today in the Amazon jungle is a product of millions of years of the Amazon basin transitioning back and forth between a large lake with various islands and a big river drainage.  See as the Andes popped up, they would periodically weigh down the western side of South America and tilt the continent to the west, causing all the drainage to cease and form a big interior lake called Lagos Amazonas.  All the critters would run to the islands, sort of like Carnival in the Caribbean and party their heart’s out, drinking, “engaging” and ….well, bio-diversifying like crazy.  

When erosion released the weigh on the western margin of South America, the continent would “rebound” or pop back up and the proto-Amazon River would drain the continent and Party Over! All the newly diverse populations of critters would disperse out into the larger forest, all hung over from their refugia experience.  Spring Break on a massive scale.

I predict similar refugia-driven diversification of culture when corona-cation is over.  

Here we set on our little island’s of culture, taking MASTER CLASSES, doing puzzles, reading absurd amounts, surfing the internet for obscure definitions and topics like “Amalfi Coast Italy”, just waiting for the proverbial “lake to drain” so that we can go across the street and tell our neighbors “Did you know that the Amalfi coast was controlled by the Principality of Salermo, until it was sacked by the Republic of Pisa in 1137?”. 

When we blow off back into the virus-reduced, curve-flattened world, what will we add to the diversity of the world? Maybe we have been honing our dog-walking skills (“if you hold the leash with your left hand, then you can raise the glass of wine without worrying if your dog will spill it”), or our reality TV knowledge (“it was clear that he was never going to choose her because she loved him too much”) or our ZOOM skills (“you can put up a cool picture of the beach so people will thing that you are zooming from – the – beach! Seriously!”). Still yet, maybe this experience as truly solidified our political leanings.  Better yet, maybe it is not what you bring to the jungle, but what you bring to the refugia within which you exist.  After all, there are some critters that chose to stay on the island, preferring it to the rest of the world.  As we become more and more saturated with TV, social networking and TED Talks, honestly, my refugia is looking better every day.

Mountain Pig …. Out.